Friday, October 29, 2010

India second-most challenging place for expats: Survey

It has emerged that India is the second-most difficult posting for expatriate managers to work in, according to a report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit today.

The survey conducted in July this year covered 418 executives who had collectively worked in 77 different countries. It showed that 34 per cent believed working in India would qualify them for a special ‘hardship’ living allowance, next only to Nigeria (37 per cent).

The hardship estimate is based on factors such as political stability, crime levels and quality of housing, health and education, according to the authors of the survey-based report.

The survey also showed that India ranked third in terms of where the number of expatriate executives were coming from (21 per cent) and sixth in terms of where expatriate executives were heading for (16 per cent). More than a third of those polled were working in China (35 per cent).

The survey also showed that a stint in a major emerging market scuh as India boosts careers. Although employers will not explicitly say so, employees believe working in a major market will make a big difference to the career. Around 80 per cent of those polled believe an assignment in a major emerging market will make the difference.

Quoting Yvonne McNulty, Monash University, the report said, “Expatriate assignments used to be very much company-generated. Companies selected individuals. This tradition has now been turned on its head and many assignments are now self-initiated.”